Lessons Learned from American Television
by Rysler
Summary: Abby dusts a submarine for fingerprints. Ziva must protect her when the suspect returns to the scene of the crime. An Abby and Ziva femslash story.


Abby looked down at the Baltimore Harbor. "If Gibbs wants to do some team-building thing, fine, but I've been to the Maritime Museum. Can't we go to the aquarium?"

Gibbs, coming up from the truck, rolled his eyes. "Do you see that submarine, Abby?"

Ziva slammed the door of the truck and followed Gibbs. Abby continued frowning at the fleet of ships before her. She said, "At the aquarium, I can see puffins."

"There's a case, Abby."

"In the submarine?"

"Bingo. It wouldn't fit into your lab."

"Huh. Did you try?"

Gibbs ignored her.

Ziva, standing on Gibbs' other side, smirked. "Are you claustrophobic, Abby?"

"Do you eat pork?"

"You're still pissed I wouldn't go to ribs night with you?"

Gibbs sighed. McGee jogged up the sidewalk, balancing a tray of Starbucks with his lab case. "McGee!" Tony shouted from his car, and McGee jerked at the sound and stumbled. Coffee hit the sidewalk. Gibbs cringed.

McGee's eyes widened. "I'll... go back, boss."

"Tony'll go back. You and I'll take the perimeter. Ziva and Abby, inside. At ten this morning, a boy on a school trip found a couple of kilos of cocaine in a torpedo tube."

McGee looked across the harbor. "Kind of deserted."

"We've got SWAT coming in to set up a sting. Hoping the guys come back." Gibbs checked his watch. "They'll be here in an hour. We should be wrapped up by then. Ziva, you photograph. Abby, you dust."

Abby slung her lab case over her shoulder. "A woman's work..."

"...Is never done," Ziva echoed.

* * *

In the forward torpedo room on the submarine, Abby peered into the tube. The insides were brushed with black powder, and Abby carefully placed tape over the rims and then peeled it back. "This place is cleaner than my bathroom." 

"Did you know that fifteen men lived in this room?" Ziva was reading a brochure on the U.S.S. Torsk."

Abby backed up, removing her head from the tube, and looked around. "No way."

"Yes. Way."

Abby chuckled. She glanced at the torpedo on display and then walked in a wide arc away from it and toward the framed American flag. Ziva watched her. "You don't like being out of your lab?"

"No." Abby began dusting powder over the glass.

"Why not? You could become a field agent, like McGee." Ziva was

Abby smiled.

"I think you are tough enough."

"Thanks. But I'm a scientist. I like the science. I don't like what's out there." Abby looked up at Ziva, and took a breath. "Kate...Kate died out there. My lab is...mine. I can take care of people that way."

Ziva nodded. "But you were attacked by your own assistant."

"That was totally his fault."

"You're not entirely safe."

"I guess I wouldn't be, anywhere. But I've chosen where to make my stand."

"I understand."

Abby straightened and waved her duster at Ziva. "I thought you might."

Somewhere down the narrow corridor, a crash sounded. Abby jerked her head in that direction. "What was--"

A man appeared in the hatch. He held a gun down at his side. "Who are you?"

"Federal agents," Ziva said. She was moving toward Abby. Her gun was already out. Abby hadn't seen her unholster it.

"You're not federal agents. Your accent, her tattooes? I'm not stupid. Who are you with? Hernandez?"

"Gibbs," Ziva said. Her answer was short and direct, as if she was trying to keep him happy by answering her questions. Trying to buy time. Trying to throw him off. She was in front of Abby, and Abby was peering around her shoulder.

A hatch creaked open in the distance. Ziva's walkie-talkie crackled. "Perimeter secure," Gibbs voice said through the static.

Ziva snorted.

"Who's with you?" The man's voice rose to a high pitch.

Ziva's voice remained flat. "I told you, Gibbs."

He raised his gun. "You're hostages, then. Whoever you are."

"We're not your hostages," Ziva said.

He jerked his gun at Abby. "You. Closer. What are you doing back there?"

"Nothing." Abby crept around Ziva's side. Ziva's left hand grabbed her arm.

The man's hand shook as he pointed the gun first at Abby, then at Ziva. "You're blocking the escape hatch," he said.

"I don't think it works. This boat is sixty years old."

"Abby? Ziva?" Gibbs voice echoed from down the corridor. The man looked over his shoulder. The gun stayed pointed at Abby.

Ziva yanked Abby closer to her, and then raised her gun and fired at his chest. He recoiled, dropping the gun. His shirt turned red as blood soaked through the fabric. He clutched his chest. Ziva watched the spurts of his heartbeat. She counted four before he fell backward onto the floor and became still.

Abby turned into Ziva's grip, and clung to her. "You didn't have to do that."

"He was dead as soon as he walked into the room."

Abby pressed her face into Ziva's shoulder. "You killed him."

Ziva lowered her gun, and wrapped her free arm around Abby. "Any bullet he fired could have ricocheted, even if he missed us, improbable in such tight quarters. If Gibbs had come, he would have had three hostages instead of two. He wanted you between our lines of fire, Abby. He was no amateur kid. Hernandez is code for the Russian mafia. They control the harbor."

Abby panted. She pressed her forehead against Ziva, trying not to hyperventilate, or throw up on Ziva's jacket, or faint.

"All clear!" Ziva shouted, and a second later, Gibbs swung around the corner, his gun out. He stepped over the corpse on the floor.

"You all right?"

Abby closed her eyes. "Ziva saved my life."

Gibbs glanced from the man on the floor to Ziva. "Good for her."

"I hate leaving my lab."

Ziva met Gibbs' eyes, and smiled.

* * *

SWAT had arrived, and McGee put in a call to Ducky about the new body. Abby had finished dusting the forward torpedo room for prints, but the rest of the submarine would be McGee and Tony's duty. She had enough evidence to take back to her lab. 

Gibbs leaned against his truck with his arms folded, and said, "I'm sorry, Abby. We should have been more careful clearing the boat."

"It's okay, Gibbs. I'm a tough girl." Abby sat on the fender. Ziva stood next to her, one hand on Abby's shoulder. She hadn't broken contact since the shooting.

Tony's car pulled up beside the truck. He rolled down his window. "Coffee's here. What'd I miss?"

Gibbs reached through the window for his coffee. "We found a body."

* * *

Abby showed up two days later at Ziva's apartment, offering cabernet sauvignon and a pot of red tulips. Ziva ushered her in, and Abby saw the bare table in the dining area was set with two places. "Not the usual gang tonight?" 

"Tony had a date, McGee had a...raid? I asked him if he needed backup, and he said his group was already 20 strong. Gibbs is spending the weekend in Shenandoah, and the director...wouldn't say."

Abby nodded. She put the tulips by the window, next to the dying spider plant she'd brought a month ago. A dirty glass of water sat on the sill. She watered the spider plant and patted its tendrils.

"Besides..." Ziva was saying. "I didn't invite them anyway."

Abby smiled and turned around.

Ziva was watching her. "There are two options, tonight. McGee loaned me his Sega. There is...kickboxing. And racing. I am a particularly good driver. Or." She smirked.

"Or?"

"Your cabernet sauvignon with lamb stew by candelight, followed by dancing, followed by chocolate spiced with orange for dessert."

Abby chose option two. When they were seated across from each other at the table, and Abby had interrogated Ziva on how she could possibly eat a poor, defenseless lamb, and had become convinced, she asked, "Is this how they do romantic in your country?"

Ziva leaned forward. "I believe it is how they do romantic in yours."

"Are you sure? Because you wouldn't believe the things I've seen McGee do with his video games."

Ziva laughed. "Consider it a cultural exchange, then."

Abby reached across the table for her hand. Ziva drew back, and said. "I'm a coward."

"Funny to hear from a girl who saved my life."

Ziva chuckled. "That was an accident."

"What, you were aiming for me?"

"No, I mean, an accident that it happened. I should have been more aware. Searched the ship or guarded the door or...After tracking Ari here..." Saying his name made Ziva's shoulders shake slightly. She inhaled. "After Ari, when I had a chance to stay, to avoid my life with Mossad, I took it."

"Gibbs needed you. The director--"

"The director. That's a story I should tell you another time. This time... This story... I turned my back on my country. I know Sharon is in a coma. And Hamas has won. They need me more than Gibbs, tracking down itinerant Navy wives."

"Or the Middle East will fall apart?"

"Yes."

"And it won't, if you are there?"

Ziva stopped breathing. Abby saw the subtle, fluttering movement of her chest stop, and finally managed to seize her hand. She yanked on Ziva's fingers, and Ziva let out a forceful sigh. Abby rubbed her palm with her thumb. Ziva said, "It doesn't matter. I should still fight."

"For what?"

"And if you solve a case, or a thousand cases, with your evidence lab, will there never be another? Will it matter?"

"Exactly. That's what I was trying to say on the submarine. Before we were interrupted."

Ziva blinked. "Exactly?"

"It's not that the world is shit, Ziva. It's that some of us get to choose which shit we get to smell. And we do what we can to help the people who don't get to choose."

Ziva looked down at their intertwined fingers. "I did not get to choose what I did about Ari. I'm sorry."

"I have a confession to make."

Ziva looked up again, and met her eyes. "A confession. Is this some sort of Catholic thing?"

"More of a grade school thing. I... didn't like you, at first."

The corner of Ziva's lip curled, drawing her expression into a half-smile. "You're kidding."

"You... And Gibbs... You've seen things. Horrible things. Worse than what I've seen in the lab. I didn't want to see them. So I avoided them. And you."

Ziva enclosed Abby's hand between both of hers.

Abby inhaled. "I didn't want to see the thing that killed Kate."

"But now you have."

"No. But I've seen you."

Ziva draw Abby's fingers to her lips and kissed her knuckles.

Abby tilted her head. "I've always wanted to go to Jerusalem."

"It's a beautiful city. If you're into old things."

Abby chuckled. "So was New Orleans...Though it was only three hundred years old. A baby that never had a chance."

Ziva cringed slightly. She pressed Abby's hand to her cheek. Abby tapped her nose with her thumb. "Jerusalem has been rebuilt many times. It has been destroyed by invading armies. And we have yet to be pushed into the sea." She turned her head, her gaze fixing on the mezuzah on the doorway to the bedroom. Metallic green Mardi Gras beads hung from a nail above it. Abby had brought the beads on her first visit, claiming that they were authentically purchased from the Party Store in McLean.

"Were you there," Ziva asked, "Would New Orleans not have fallen apart, either?"

"Harsh."

Ziva grinned.

Abby slapped her cheek lightly, and then stood up and walked to the mezuzah. She said, "Hear, O Israel."

Ziva followed her. "The Lord is our God." She ran her fingers over the wood.

"Did you say there would be dancing?"

"Yes. But I have decided, there will be no clubbing tonight."

"You have decided?"

"I have."

"Never argue with a federal agent."

Ziva chuckled and went to the laptop sitting on top of her stereo. Tell Me On a Sunday began to play.

Abby walked toward her, smiling. "Let me properly thank you for saving my life."

"I will be happy to take advantage of you in your vulnerable state."

"I bet you're skilled in that." Abby slipped her arms around Ziva's shoulders.

"Very." Ziva held her waist. "But rarely for a good cause."

"Am I a good cause?" Abby had to hunch slightly to rest head on Ziva's shoulder.

Ziva kissed her neck in answer.

* * *

"Have a good weekend, Ziva?" Tony sat sprawled at his desk. He pronounced it ZEE-vah, drawing it out, making her name take longer to say than it would take for her to de-ball him. 

She smiled. "I did. Abby baked me a cake."

McGee, at his own desk, smirked.

Tony sat up. "She baked you a cake?"

"For saving her life."

"I've never gotten a cake! All the time I've saved her life. That I've done for her--"

McGee leaned forward. "When would that be, Tony?"

"Well, come on...There must be something."

"Well, there was the time she got you out of jail," McGee said.

Ziva nodded.

"There was the thing with the anthrax..."

Tony hit his desk. "Okay, okay. She doesn't need saving. She saves her own life! That lab is like a sadomasochistic death chamber. I'm not man enough to save her life, okay?"

McGee chuckled. "Ziva's man enough. That's why she gets cake."

Ziva crossed her arms. "I'm very good at what I do."

Tony picked up a pencil and pointed it at her. "The best."

* * *

Ziva stepped out of the elevator. Music blasted from the speakers mounted above the computer console, but Abby shut it off when she spotted her. "Hey!" 

"Hey," Ziva said.

"Evidence?"

"No, a message." Ziva walked further into the room.

Abby's eyes widened and she clasped her hands together in front of her. "A message from Mossad?"

"You would never know, would you."

Abby grinned as Ziva covered her hands.

Ziva said, "The message is one I heard on American television. If you save someone's life, you are responsible for them forever."

"Or, until they die again."

"Well, I think the responsibility extends to preventing that."

"You've thought this through, haven't you?"

Ziva tugged her closer to whisper in her ear. "I have accepted the challenge."

Abby pressed a single, chaste kiss to Ziva's forehaed. "Rock."


End file.
